[434] Act of June 28, 1832: _Ter. Laws of Mich._, III, 931, 932.
[435] Act of Apr. 4, 1833: _Ter. Laws of Mich._, III, 1005-7.
[438] The _Rev. Stat._ (1846), 333, make the term of desertion two years for either absolute or limited divorce. The _Acts_ (1847), 168, 169, lengthen the period to five years for absolute divorce and three years for partial divorce. But these changes are repealed by _Acts_ (1848), 194.
By the existing law, as then enacted, on application of the aggrieved, a full divorce may be decreed by the court of chancery, or by the circuit court of the county where the parties or one of them resides, for (1) adultery; (2) physical incompetency; (3) sentence to imprisonment for three years or more, no pardon to affect the status of the divorced persons; (4) two years' desertion; (5) when the husband or wife shall have become a habitual drunkard; "and (6) the circuit courts may, in their discretion, upon application as in other cases, divorce from the bonds of matrimony any party who is a resident of this state, and whose husband or wife shall have obtained a divorce in any other state." The same tribunals are authorized, in their discretion, to grant either a limited or a full divorce in favor of the aggrieved for (1) extreme cruelty, "whether practiced by using personal violence, or by any other means;" (2) utter desertion for two years; or (3) on complaint of the wife for the husband's neglect to provide, as by the law of 1838.[439]
[439] HOWELL, _Gen. Stat._ (1882-83), II, 1621-30; MILLER, _Comp. Laws_ (1899), III, 2653-66; _cf._ _Acts_ (1851), 71, 72. The partial divorce may, as originally, be "forever or for a limited time."
Wisconsin, the remaining[440] portion of the region originally governed by the ordinance of 1787, was erected into a separate territory in 1836. Its divorce legislation, which in its general outline is similar to that of Michigan, began in 1838-39, when the district court of each county was given jurisdiction in both kinds of separation. The causes of absolute divorce then recognized are (1) impotence; (2) adultery. Those of partial divorces are (1) extreme cruelty; (2) two years' wilful desertion; (3) habitual drunkenness; (4) abandonment of the wife by the husband, or "his refusal or neglect to provide for her."[441]